Robert Forenza likes to joke that he’s been making environmentally conscious teddy bears since "back when green was a color, not a movement." His company, Peace Toys, began producing a series of organic stuffed animals called Foundlings back in 1992.

Angelo Ponce’s "green" bears (which actually come in many different colors) have an even longer history, dating back to 1986. Worried that his budding alpaca fur business Lanart was in danger after a series of customer returns, Angelo fashioned a bear out of the material for his 15-year-old daughter. Soon customers were scooping them up.

Aurora World Inc. only recently began exploring the production of green bears. It debuted its Aurora Naturally™ line at Toy Fair this year and immediately wrote a half-million dollars in orders. When it shipped out the catalog in May, Aurora received 805 more orders in the first two weeks.

"The world needs our help," declares Paul Roche, senior vice president of sales at Aurora. Teddy bear manufacturers and artists seem to be answering the call. As people become more and more eco-conscious, with global warming receiving international attention and renewable energy becoming a hot-button topic, so are businesses, and a number of teddy bear manufacturers are embracing the green movement.

It’s not just about gaining the respect and allegiance of socially aware customers, though that’s certainly part of it. Increasingly, companies see it as their civic duty to give back. "It’s crunch time," says Peace Toys’ Robert, whose company began manufacturing its first Earth-friendly products in 1982 and now claims to offer the only 100 percent organic cotton toys in the country. "This generation of parents now is a lot more tuned in to what’s happening in the world."

Parents are increasingly concerned about how their wee ones’ toys are manufactured and what the environmental impact is, and no wonder. Robert says that the process of making something as seemingly simple as a non-organic cotton T-shirt can employ up to two pounds of pesticides.

Robert had been in the toy business for several years, producing soft Hugg-A-Planet® toys, when a customer suggested that he consider animals. Peace Toys used a template from the now-defunct Knickerbocker Toy Co.’s Jason Bears, and its animals are entirely manufactured in the company’s home state of Vermont, giving them a small carbon footprint. The bunny is the most popular animal, though Peace Toys also offers bears, whales, and others.

But there’s a lot more to environmentally aware teddy bear manufacturing than just cotton. One increasingly notable bear material is alpaca, which Sausalito, Calif.-based Marsha Hallet has been using for more than a decade. The pelts used to make Hallet Huggables come from baby alpacas, or crias, that have died of natural causes in the harsh climate of Peru and whose bodies would otherwise be discarded.

"I think my business was always green, and then I found out from other people that this was the new thing. I’ve been doing it forever," Marsha says. "The only thing that wasn’t so green about it was the tanning [of the hides] because of the formaldehyde. Now [my supplier] tans without the formaldehyde."

Local Peruvian artisans make Marsha’s bears, and Marsha also provides support for shepherds who, she says, "are compensated for something that was previously a loss to them." Because of the higher price points, Hallet Huggables customers are mostly collectors.

Lanart’s Angelo, who sells bears in the United States, Canada, England, Germany, and Australia, also employs Peruvian artisans, many of them single mothers. His bears range from collectibles to playtoys, and he’s taken his wares to several teddy bear shows. "I make some jointed bears for the people that are collectors and like that type of product," he says. "But most of them are just regular people who like alpaca, know what alpaca is."

"Alpacas themselves have a low impact on the environment," explains Alise Schmitt, an alpaca owner and breeder in Marysville, Wash., who stocks Lanart teddy bears. "Alpacas have soft, leathery feet like a dog’s pad, capped by a V-shaped toenail, and do not tear up the sod. Evolving on the sparse vegetation of the high plains of the Andes Mountains in South America, alpacas have developed an extremely efficient digestive system: If no green grass is available, they can subsist on less than two pounds of hay per day, eating less per pound of body weight than a horse or even a sheep."

Small family-owned businesses aren’t the only ones embracing the green trend. Aurora, a 16-year-old manufacturer in Pico Rivera, Calif., that sells bears at department stores, gift shops, and hospitals, introduced its Eco-Plush line this year. The 7-1/2- to 13-inch bears are made of soybeans and kapok and have hangtags make of 100 percent recycled paper. "Other than the cost of raw materials, it’s about the same production" as traditional bears, says Paul from Aurora. "As far as sewing, we are using kapok stuffing, and because of the nature of kapok this is also hand stuffed -- all of this adds to cost." The San Diego Zoo and Monterey Bay Aquarium were the first to test the product, and Paul says they’ve been pleased with the response, because the green theme fits into their mission and retail objectives.

Teddy-Hermann GmbH in Hirschaid, Germany, this year introduced a line called Natural Cuddly Friends, made with wool shorn from live sheep. The line includes several bears as well as a mouse and an elephant. "We decided to go for this completely new concept due to the most recent discussions about toys which are both environmentally friendly and particularly suitable for children," says Teddy-Hermann’s Margit Drolshagen. "It starts with the popular designs by Traudel Mischner-Hermann and ends with the eco-tex standard cotton fabrics free of harmful substances."

Of course, some would say that the teddy bear community has embraced green practices for years. "Preferred stuffing choices [going back decades] consisted of kapok, wool, and excelsior," says Lisa Vought of Edinburgh Imports, a bear fabric and craft supplier in Torrance, Calif. She explains that excelsior is derived from pine tree shavings, and kapok is a pesticide-free all-natural fiber that is pulled from the seedpods of the kapok tree. "These sustainable materials that are now considered ‘green’ have been used extensively since the early days, and remain in use today in all aspects of fine bear making," Lisa says.

Steiff’s first teddy bears more than a century ago used Schulte furs, a natural fiber sheared from Angora goats. The sheared fur, called mohair, is a modern-day staple of teddy bear artists and manufacturers like Edinburgh. "What better testament to the sustainability of the fabric when one finds a bear from 1901 still in existence over 100 years later," Lisa says.

The artist behind Vintage Mink Bears by Kathy Myers also considers her animals a green undertaking. By fashioning them from old furs that would otherwise would be tossed into landfills, Kathy is doing more than just making three-dimensional memoirs. She’s also recycling. "I am a vegetarian so I truly felt like the spirit of the animal was still in the garment, and there was no doubt in my mind that my teddies allowed that spirit to be ‘reborn,’" she says. "It was important to me that my recycled mink teddies also make a difference to the care of living animals. When I was doing teddy bear shows in the 1990s, a portion of my sales supported a dog rescue organization, a wolf pack adoption in the wild, and our local zoo."

One thing everyone agrees on is that green is here for good. Whether companies are embracing the idea out of a sense of duty or to attract new customers, they all espouse credos that would make Al Gore proud. "It’s extremely important. I didn’t even know it was a buzzword [until recently]," says Lanart’s Angelo. "We are a member of fair trade, of course. I’m from Latin America, and we always felt we had to work for things for Mother Earth before we do anything else. It’s part of the culture. I wasn’t even thinking about being green."

"I just think it’s important, the idea of saving the planet," Hallet Huggables’ Marsha says. "If you can, why not?"